Janet Quin-Harkin Read Online Free PDF

shutters she opened them in the hope of letting in more air. But the night air outside was heavy with the smell of the river. The slightest of breezes which came from the unseen land was not cooling but carried with it other odors; rotting vegetation mixed with spicy cooking and the heady, sickly scent of unseen flowers. Mosquitoes whined around her face. Libby sighed and leaned against the window frame, looking out across the black waters of the mighty Mississippi to the few dots of light glimmering on the opposite shore.
    It was their first night out of New Orleans on the Mississippi Belle . The stern-wheeler had put into a little town before dark because the river was running low and too dangerous to navigate at night. Libby resented being held up like this. Now that she had started on her journey, she felt she had to get on and finish it as soon as possible. The blackness outside the cabin was full of strange noises; the plop and gurgle of the river waters as they flowed past the moored boat, the croak of frogs and the screech of millions of insects along the banks, the whine of the ever-present mosquitoes. Libby brushed back a damp curl from her face and idly slapped at a mosquito.
    What am I doing here? she thought. How can I have embarked on such a senseless, dangerous journey?
    It had seemed so simple when she rushed from the house in Boston some three weeks earlier. She would take the boat to New Orleans, go upstream to Missouri, then head out with one of the wagon trains to California. There she would find Hugh, help him make a fortune, return to Boston to see her parents’ faces, then sail to England triumphant.
    How naive I was then, she thought, smiling at her own stupidity.
    Those three weeks had made Boston seem a lifetime away. She was already amazed at how little thought she had given to such a huge undertaking. She realized now that if her father had not forbidden her so strongly, she probably would never have left. They could have talked it over like sane people and then hired someone like a private investigator to go after Hugh. It was her father’s bluster that had clinched everything. Her concern that her father would stop her before she could take the children had made her rush through a decision which should not have been taken lightly.
    She had not paused for a second as she packed hastily, pawned all her available jewelry for the paltry sum of three hundred and twenty dollars, and snatched the children from their surprised governess in the park. She had then taken the first ship sailing from Boston Harbor. It was only when she unpacked in the ship’s cabin that she had a chance to examine the items she had packed for such a long journey. Many of them were unsuitable for travel—white muslins which creased, and no iron, three pairs of pantaloons for Bliss and none for Eden, and glaring omissions which would have to be purchased later with her precious cash. But all things considered, she was not unhappy as the ship sailed from Boston and put her out of her father’s grasp. She was still fired with the elation of having dared to do something so unthinkable and having got away with it. She almost believed that the hardest part was behind her.
    The first voyage on the S.S. Venture had been smooth and simple. They had sailed with all speed southward, calling in at Charleston, South Carolina and then at St. Augustine, Florida before reaching New Orleans. She had spent her time sitting in the sun on deck while the children played beside her, had dined at the captain’s table with pleasant southern gentlemen who had fought to sit next to her and charmed her with their flattery. By the time she came ashore at New Orleans, she was convinced that the hardships of the journey were vastly exaggerated and that the next stage would be just as smooth sailing as the first.
    She had enquired at the dockside and found that a paddle steamer would be sailing up river the next day. Unfortunately, every berth was